There’s never much chance of fracking companies ending up on Santa’s “nice” list, considering that polluting our air and water and making people sick is a regular part of how they do business. But while the movement to ban fracking made great strides in 2014, most notably with the recent ban in New York, the oil and gas industry seemed to go the extra mile this year to get onto the “naughty” list. Even here at Food & Water Watch, we were surprised by some of the dirty tactics some fracking companies used to attempt to sway public opinion and win over lawmakers.

Here are a few of the most unbelievable fracking industry stunts that made the news in 2014:

One pizza. That’s Chevron’s idea of fair compensation for an explosion that put homes, families and workers in danger. And what happened in Bobtown isn’t an isolated incident – just this month, 25 families in Ohio were forced to evacuate their homes due to potentially explosive methane leaking from a nearby fracking well.

4. This is not what they meant by “job creation”

Grassroots organizations like Food & Water Watch often work with concerned locals to pack hearing rooms and show decision-makers that the community opposes fracking. In September, a pro-fracking industry group called North Carolina Energy Coalition tried to do the same… but failed. Instead of bringing community members who actually supported them, it bused in a group of homeless people who knew nothing about fracking. Several of the homeless men admitted that they were paid to attend, and didn’t know why until they arrived.

It wouldn’t surprise us if the industry couldn’t find people genuinely supportive of fracking to attend a hearing, but paying people to pretend they support fracking is a cheap trick.

3. Getting cozy with Dr. Evil

Food & Water Watch and our activists must really be making the fracking industry nervous, because this year the industry partnered with Richard “Dr. Evil” Berman to attack us and other anti-fracking organizations. Berman is notorious for using underhanded tactics to make advocacy organizations look bad, going so far as to dig up information on the titles of board members’ cars. What’s next, going through activists’ trash?

2. NIMBY-ist of the year

Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon and hypocrite extraordinaire, got involved in a lawsuit against fracking in his neighborhood. That’s right, he’s trying to stop fracking near his home. He still insists that people should be fine with fracking happening in their backyards – he just doesn’t want it in his backyard.

At the moment when Governor Cuomo revealed his decision to exercise caution and ban fracking in New York, a fracked well in Ohio was spewing natural gas into the air for the third straight day from a leak that well crews could not stop. This is the reality facing our air, water, climate, and communities as long as fracking continues in states without a ban.

Governor Cuomo’s decision was backed by the science described at length in the Health Department’s extensive study of the risks fracking poses to public health. New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker summed up the study simply: he wouldn’t want his child to play outside in a community that allows fracking.

Oil and gas companies claim that accidents are few and far between, but leaks, spills, and explosions are not uncommon. And when they do happen, they are often severe.

Ohio, a small shale gas producer compared to states like Texas and Pennsylvania, has seen a distressing number of serious accidents related to fracked wells. Last month, a worker was killed in an explosion and fire at a fracking site. Two weeks before that, Ohio saw three fracking-related accidents in three days, during which a worker was burned, a pipeline fire torched acres of forest, and a well blowout forced 400 families to evacuate.

In June, a massive spill and fire forced 25 families to evacuate and killed over 70,000 fish along a 5-mile stretch of a tributary of the Ohio River. The fire took a week to extinguish, with at least 30 explosions occurring over that week, driving dangerous shrapnel though the air. The state lets companies drill up to 100 feet from homes, but explosions at drilling operations are capable of blowing pieces of metal much farther than that.

The month before that fire, drillers were unable to prevent the excessive buildup of pressure in a well, which led to a leak of around 1,600 gallons of oil-based drilling fluids into a tributary of the Ohio River.

These accidents are unacceptable, yet they are only the most visible instances of pollution. We can’t see the long-term impacts of widespread drilling and fracking—damage to groundwater, the atmosphere, and the public health effects of long-term exposure to chemicals—but they stand to be a much more significant threat.

As Governor O’Malley prepares to open Maryland to fracking, we urge him to take a look at Ohio’s cautionary tale and New York’s safety victory and to seriously ask himself if he would let his kids live and play in a community that allows fracking, given the science. Governor O’Malley should join Governor Cuomo, and stand up for the long-term health of Maryland’s communities and watersheds.

Fantastic news came from the state of New York this week when the Cuomo administration announced its decision to ban fracking in the state. This exciting decision is a tribute to everyone who has worked so hard in New York to protect the state from the ravages experienced elsewhere from fracking.

Here’s the full story: On Wednesday, the Governor convened a cabinet meeting where Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker presented the findings of the Department of Health’s review on fracking. He described the peer- reviewed studies showing that fracking contaminates air and water and harms health, and he highlighted that many of the long-term health effects are still unknown, as epidemiological studies have not been conducted. Comissioner Zucker ended his presentation by saying, “Would I live in a community that would allow fracking? The answer is no.”

Then in this real-time drama, Joe Martens, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation indicated the department would issue “legally binding findings to prohibit high volume hydraulic fracturing in New York.” They will be included in the supplemental generic environmental impact study that will be released in the New Year, an approach that Governor Cuomo supports, and that will effectively ban fracking in New York.

This is particularly exciting because just three years ago, conventional wisdom in New York’s mainstream environmental community held that fracking was inevitable in New York and that strong regulation was the best we could hope for. But Food & Water Watch, Frack Action, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Water Defense, United for Action, Citizen Action of New York and several other organizations joined together to launch New Yorkers Against Fracking (NYAF) – with the audacious goal of winning a complete ban in the state of New York. For the next three years, thousands of people engaged in activities around the state, from massive demonstrations, to sending in comments to the Department of Environmental Conservation on the health risks of fracking. NYAF grew to over 250 national, state, and local groups.

For the last two years, it has been impossible for Governor Cuomo to go anywhere in the state without fractivists by the dozens, hundreds, or thousands rallying outside his appearances, delivering the clear message: ban fracking now. At his polling place this November, Cuomo recognized the movement as the most powerful protest movement in the state.

I’m proud that Food & Water Watch was the first national organization to stand with the grassroots organizations and to call for a ban on fracking. This hard won victory shows that we can win when we build political power. It also shows that we can win when we organize around a clear message and an unambiguous goal. It should inspire reflection among those mainstream environmental groups reluctant to take a strong stand against fracking or those who attempt to split the difference by supporting both a moratorium and stronger regulations at the same time. We need to be clear and uncompromising in calling for a ban on fracking and other extreme extraction practices.

Governor Cuomo heeded this call, and has positioned himself as a national leader in the movement to shift to an energy policy that is safe and based on efficiency and 100 percent renewable energy. New York is a bellwether state for fracking nationally, and is the first shale state to take such bold action against fracking. This decision has implications for other states considering fracking like Maryland, Pennsylvania, California and others.

In contrast to Cuomo’s decision today, Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley recently released regulations for fracking in his state. The Obama Administration’s EPA has refused to reopen investigations on instances of water contamination from fracking. Governor Hickenlooper in Colorado continues to oppose even communities’ ability to prevent fracking, Governor Brown in California continues to burry his head in the sand when it comes to the real health and environmental impacts of fracking, and Governor-Elect Wolf in Pennsylvania is floating a severance tax as a way for the state to make money off fracking, rather than taking on this dangerous practice.

Politicians with national influence or larger political aspirations should take note that support for fracking nationally has fallen, especially among Democrats and Independents, over the past few years. A PEW poll issued this November found that a 47 percent plurality of Americans, 59 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Independents nationally oppose increased fracking. This ban in New York comes exactly one week after Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced a bill to ban fracking on public lands, the strongest federal bill on fracking to date.

The decision in New York will have a ripple effect across the country and act to strengthen efforts against fracking nationwide. The story of how tens of thousands of fractivists fought and won in New York with their blood, sweat and tears is awe-inspiring and demonstrates that we should fight for what we want – not just the best that can be negotiated in a backroom deal or what others say is politically feasible. Instead we should work to change the political reality in order to win real improvements in people’s lives and protect our fragile planet for future generations.

Dianne is one of the amazing people I get to work with as the Southern California Organizer for Food & Water Watch. Dianne and her late husband worked hard to build a home in Carson, California to leave behind for their children, but the oil and gas industry could destroy their legacy.

When Dianne found out that Occidental Petroleum (“Oxy”) was planning to drill 200 new wells over the next 10 years, she asked if there would be fracking: they answered yes. The night before, she had caught a special on TV about extreme oil extraction — she saw homes cracking and falling apart because of fracking.

That’s when Dianne and her neighbors reached out to Food & Water Watch. They had heard about the work we were doing with communities to ban fracking.

Dianne and I started to meet weekly to strategize about the campaign — how to get Carson’s story in the news and how to build more public support. It was clear that Dianne was passionate, and as a skilled community activist she would give Oxy a fight. I helped by providing the information and resources to fight this fracking proposal, including reports from our research team and insight from other organizers working to stop fracking in towns across the country.

While the City Council was considering Oxy’s proposal, we convinced them to put a 45-day hold on all new drilling in Carson. During that time, the community rallied support to convince the Council to put a permanent ban on new drilling. At several City Council meetings, there were so many people that supported the ban, we couldn’t all fit in the room!

Oxy used a lot of dirty tricks to overturn the temporary ban and get approval to start drilling. They even bribed people by offering gift cards to generate support for fracking at City Council meetings. They also pulled some powerful political strings, with a local paper reporting that Governor Jerry Brown called Carson’s mayor to urge him to kill the fracking ban. Clearly the community was doing something right if Big Oil and Gas were trying so hard to shut them down.

When it came down to it, we knew the vote was close. The movement against fracking in Carson was strong, but Oxy’s connections were powerful and they had spent a lot of money to fight the ban. Unfortunately, Oxy’s money and lobbying won out, and the Council voted against the ban on drilling.

Dianne is in this fight because Carson is her home, it’s where she bought a house and has worked hard to create a legacy for her children and grandchildren. I’m committed to this work because, like Dianne, I can’t just sit by as some corporation comes into a community and destroys the land, water and health of real people. This is all of our fight, because no one should be at risk of the dangers of fracking.

We need your support to keep legislators from passing Monsanto’s dream bill.

We’re within 800 votes of winning GMO labeling at the ballot in Oregon, and the measure is currently in a recount! Win or lose, coming this close to defeating Monsanto, Dow and other Big Food companies, despite their record-shattering spending to mislead voters, shows that we’re close to winning labeling for everyone!

Food & Water Watch has been on the front lines in Oregon for the ballot initiative to label GMO foods since last January. Along with our allies, as a member of the campaign steering committee in Oregon:

We helped plan out the campaign’s grassroots effort, which qualified the initiative for the ballot with volunteers who helped gather more than 150,000 signatures over the summer.

We had five staff on the ground working to register people to vote and to get likely supporters to turn in their ballots, including special outreach to young voters on five college campuses.

Our national organizers in more than 17 offices throughout the U.S. helped engage volunteers from across the country to make more than 50,000 calls into Oregon voters from outside the state.

In the final days of the election, our staff and volunteers helped knock on more than 24,000 doors, make more than 500,000 calls, and turn people out to vote.

Our efforts are what helped make this election so much closer than previous ballot initiatives in Washington and California. We know that the only way we can counter the propaganda of Monsanto, Dow and other Big Ag companies, who have collectively spent more than $105 million to defeat labeling ballot initiatives in the last three elections, is to have one-on-one conversations with voters. But it takes staff and resources to recruit, train and organize volunteers, and we need to have more people working on these types of electoral efforts if we’re going to be able to make sure you can know what you’re eating and feeding your family.

Most Americans are pretty far removed from the production of their food. Grandparents may not realize that the cereal they are feeding to their grandkids is dramatically different from the cereal they fed their own children. Our food system has radically changed within one generation.

By genetically engineering food, these big chemical companies are changing plants and animals in a way that could never happen in nature, or through traditional cross-breeding. It’s crazy for some people to think that they can take DNA from a completely unrelated organism and insert it into the DNA of a plant or animal without having unknown consequences. And most of these crops are engineered to withstand higher applications of toxic chemicals or to actually produce toxic chemicals in their cells that kill bugs that eat the crop. What happens when we eat them?

Even worse, these GMO crops are untested, unlabeled and could be unsafe. The Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, all tasked with regulating different aspects of GMO crops, have no real regulations in place to look at the impacts of genetically engineered organisms on our health or our environment.

Countries around the world do not allow the growing or importation of GMO crops, and 64 countries require the labeling of all GMO foods. Why not in the U.S.? Because big food corporations want to protect their profits, regardless of what’s healthy for you and your family.

We’re standing up to these corporations that want to keep us in the dark about what is actually in our food. In fact, these companies have found support in Congress to introduce Monsanto’s dream bill (aka the DARK Act) that keeps states from labeling GMO foods, and they are having a hearing tomorrow!

We have a plan to help stop this bill from moving through Congress in 2015 by targeting specific members of Congress, but we’ll need your support to work both inside Congress and in states across the country to keep legislators from passing Monsanto’s dream bill.

In addition to fighting at the federal level, we’ll be working with our partners and volunteers in many states like New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and California to further state efforts to label GMOs. We just need your help to make sure we can implement our plans for genetically engineered food labeling.

Oil and gas companies are poisoning more and more communities in their mad rush to “drill, baby, drill.” After watching my family in Texas face this reality, I know for certain that I don’t want to see fracking expanded in backyards, schoolyards or in our national forests.

My nephew’s son was constantly getting sick – from chest colds to ear infections – and doctors couldn’t pinpoint the cause. My nephew began to wonder if the rumors of oil and gas pollution in their town were true. What would you do?

Because of his son’s health, he made the excruciatingly difficult decision to uproot his family from their small town and move across the state line to a frack-free part of New Mexico. My family was able to get away, but the fact of the matter is that not all families have the means to leave, and no family should have to make that decision.

Since moving away, the illnesses that plagued my nephew’s son have disappeared and he’s a happy, healthy second grader. My nephew hasn’t been able to find work in New Mexico, so he still operates his business in Texas during the week and drives four hours each way to be with his family in New Mexico on the weekends.

I can’t prove that the oil and gas industry was to blame, but I know my nephew’s son got healthy when he left the town and I’ve heard too many similar stories to discount them. As long as the oil and gas industry is allowed to expand fracking and make its own rules, more families will wonder if their water is safe to drink, if the air at the playground is safe to breathe and if they need to make a tough decision to sell their house at a lower price just to get out.

We know that fracking companies consistently cut corners to put profits before people, so it’s up to us to stop them. And I believe that Food & Water Watch’s approach is truly one of the best. That’s why I’ve decided to put my full-fledged support behind them. Donate today and I’ll triple the impact of your gift.

Food & Water Watch gives people the information they need to see through the smoke screens that big oil and gas companies put up, they have staff across the country in 16 states helping communities stop fracking locally, they advocate on behalf of people who don’t want to see fracking expanded and they hold our elected officials accountable for their actions — from small towns all the way to the White House.

Food & Water Watch has helped win victories against fracking that nobody thought were possible, like keeping fracking out of New York, passing more than 400 measures to protect communities from fracking, stopping Congress from fast tracking approval of a slew of new facilities to export fracked gas abroad and working to introduce a bill to ban fracking on public lands and in national forests.

I hope my offer will inspire you to give to help more communities fight fracking before it affects more families like mine. No family should have to wonder if fracking is making their child sick.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Governor O’Malley plans to move forward with fracking regulations in Maryland. Just as we were all starting to get excited about our Thanksgiving dinners, he announced that his administration will release the regulations next month and open up the Western part of the state to drilling and fracking. The news made me lose my appetite altogether, as it has become increasingly clear that fracking cannot be done safely, even with regulations.

The outgoing Governor’s regulations will not take effect until after he leaves office and pro-fracking Republican Larry Hogan, who defeated O’Malley’s Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown in the election, takes over. At that point, the new governor can do whatever he wants and is under no obligation to adopt these rules.

So why did Governor O’Malley release these regulations now? He claims it would be irresponsible after the years of study not to propose regulations on fracking, and that “Maryland can’t afford to stick its head in the sand here.”

But it’s Governor O’Malley who is turning a blind eye to the mountain of scientific evidence showing fracking cannot be safely regulated. In fact, the public health study conducted by the University of Maryland found that fracking would pose significant impacts to public health in Maryland. In seven of eight research areas – including air quality, worker health, noise and crime, water quality and cumulative effects – the research team found a high or moderately high likelihood of negative public health impacts. Read the full article…

I can’t say that I was surprised as the returns came in from the bruising midterm election last night. It’s no accident that a group of die-hard reactionaries were elected in many states from the flood of dark money, in combination with low turnout and shocking voting rights abuses. Once again, the Democratic strategy of sounding “Republican Light” and relying on TV ads to win seats in a handful of swing states has proven ineffective.

The fact is, no matter which party is in control of Congress, our way forward remains clear: We must continue to organize and keep elected officials accountable on the issues we care about.

While news programs spent most of yesterday and today talking about big wins for the Republican Party and corporations, the American people still managed to make a considerable difference. Voters went to the polls in Reading, Pennsylvania and Sussex Borough, New Jersey to prevent corporations from privatizing their respective water systems. In addition, the people of Athens, Ohio, San Benito County and Mendocino County, California and Denton, Texas all successfully voted to ban fracking in their communities.

This midterm election put communities and corporations up against one another in a very unfair fight. Plain and simple, Big Oil and Gas tried to use money to bludgeon its opposition. In San Benito County alone, the oil industry spent about $2 million in order to spread misinformation about fracking and lead residents astray.

But what did local residents have to fight against this dangerous campaign of lies? They wielded true facts about fracking, backed up by independent scientific research. And these dedicated activists pounded the pavement, talking with neighbors and building a network of trust.

People dedicated to banning fracking in their communities may have been outspent 13 to 1. But they still managed to win, and preserve the wellbeing of the places they live for future generations. To date, 136 communities in the U.S. have banned fracking, and that number is only likely to grow.

By gutting campaign finance laws, the U.S. Supreme Court put a gaping wound in our democratic process. The Koch Brothers and other greedy sources of dark money have given corporate interests a soapbox and a megaphone to push a dangerous, selfish agenda.

Things will be very tough in Congress now, and we expect more McCarthy-like tactics. But Food & Water Watch and our supporters will not be cowed or frightened.

We will continue to fight for our right to clean drinking water and safe food; for our right to know what ingredients are used in our food; for our right to preserve our health and our environment; for our right to create a better, healthier world for our children and future generations.

That’s why no matter what the results of the elections at any given time, we must continue to raise our voices and engage politically so that we can build the political power to create the world we want for our children and grandchildren.

Food & Water Watch’s new “Dear Governor Brown” video series highlights the grassroots movement to ban fracking in California. The first videos, released this week, encourage viewers to support two fracking bans on the November ballot: Measure J in San Benito County, and Measure P in Santa Barbara County. Additional videos will be released throughout the end of this year.

Bunker Seyfert, the filmmaker behind this compelling series, travelled to 15 California cities and interviewed 32 different people. Seyfert is no stranger to moving around. Born in Los Angeles, Bunker spent his childhood in Mexico, Germany,and Long Island, New York.

“Having moved around a lot as a younger person, I became interested in people’s stories,” Seyfert said. “I got into filmmaking because it struck me as the best way to communicate those stories to the largest audiences. It makes sense that I chose documentary as my form, since it often requires travel. I think I’m traveling most of the time. And I love it.”

In fact, Seyfert has crossed the United States eight times over the past four years. He has shot videos about fracking fights in New York – where he first became interested in the issue – as well as in Texas, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

“I was most shocked by my interviews in West Virginia, where permitting and environmental regulations are incredibly lax,” Seyfert said. “People had natural gas bubbling up right in their front yards.”

It’s a different scene in California, with its long history of environmental stewardship. “In California, the story is about protecting what people have already worked so hard to protect,” he said. “People understand the problems with fracking, they understand what’s at stake – polluted air and water – and they’re mobilized against it. The only reason it seems like a fight is that there are millions of dollars being poured into it by one of the wealthiest industries in the world.”

The filmmaker makes a poignant connection between the grassroots movement against fracking in California and those who cover fracking. “In the community movements to ban fracking, people are working hard, but there’s also this sense of joy, of collaboration,” Seyfert said. “It’s the same among those of us who are documenting it. We share content. We help each other out.”

In addition to the “Dear Governor Brown” series, the filmmaker is currently working – primarily as a camera operator – “on about 15 other projects,” covering fracking, mountaintop removal, and other topics of interest to those following Food & Water Watch. He is particularly looking forward to the upcoming release of a feature-length documentary “The Commons,” by a Delaware geophysicist about the resurgence of community-based efforts to protect our common resources.

Just over a week ago, I had the pleasure of participating in the People’s Climate March, along with our allies and thousands of citizens from around the world. We stood together in New York City to demand that our world’s leaders take definitive action on climate change. Of course, a big part of our mission on climate change is our fight to ban fracking, and while 2014 has seen some major milestones for our efforts, perhaps the most important of these is the evidence that our movement is growing. In order to get you inspired for the 2014 Global Frackdown, we created a video to show you some of the faces that are out there working hard around the country to ban fracking. As our video demonstrates, we are building on this momentum, and we need you to join us on October 11 to show just how strong we are.

Throughout 2014, we have witnessed citizens taking action across the nation, as well as around the globe. At Food & Water Watch, we have been keeping track of this progress as evidenced by the growing number of actions taken by communities against fracking. Last year’s Global Frackdown was a huge success and 2014 is shaping up to be our biggest Frackdown yet. It’s a good thing our movement is growing because we need to show our strength now more than ever.

The oil and gas industry has been pushing its agenda for expansion, particularly in California, Florida, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In fact, just this week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Dominion Cove Point in Maryland, one of the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities in the nation, and the only one that’s located close to a community. In New York, our efforts to birddog Governor Cuomo have proven successful. The Governor himself commented on the tenacious and persistent nature of our efforts to remind him that we don’t want fracking in the Empire State. So far, mainly due to the determination of this movement, we’ve kept fracking out of New York.

We are honored and proud to stand with each and every one of our allies in this critical fight against fracking. Will you join us? You can join an already existing event or even plan to host one by visiting Globalfrackdown.org, and we encourage you to share your stories with us. Help us spread the word about this year’s Global Frackdown by sharing this video.

Food &Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all. We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people's lives and protects our environment.